heard that immediate process was threatened, had written earnestly to deprecate such a measure;[605] and though he took the interference “very displeasantly,"[606] the pope could not afford to lose, by premature impatience; the fruit of all his labour and diplomacy, and had yielded so far as to promise that nothing of moment should be done.  To this state of mind he had been brought one day in the second week of June.  The morning after, Bennet found him “sore altered.”  The news of “my Lord of Canterbury’s proceedings” had arrived the preceding night; and “his Holiness said that [such] doings were too sore for him to stand still at and do nothing."[607] It was “against his duty towards God and the world to tolerate them.”  The imperialist cardinals, impatient before, clamoured that the evil had been caused by the dilatory timidity with which the case had been handled from the first.[608] The consistory sate day after day with closed doors;[609] and even such members of it as had before inclined to the English side, joined in the common indignation.  “Some extreme process” was instantly looked for, and the English agents, in their daily interviews with the pope, were forced to listen to language which it was hard to bear with equanimity.  Bennet’s well-bred courtesy carried him successfully through the difficulty; his companion Bonner was not so fortunate.  Bonner’s tongue was insolent, and under bad control.  He replied to menace by impertinence; and on one occasion was so exasperating, that Clement threatened to burn him alive, or boil him in a caldron of lead.[610] When fairly roused, the old man was dangerous; and the future Bishop of London wrote to England in extremity of alarm.  His letter has not been found, but the character of it may be perceived from the reassuring reply of the king.  The agents, Henry said, were not to allow themselves to be frightened; they were to go on calmly, with their accustomed diligence and dexterity, disputing the ground from point to point, and trust to him.  Their cause was good, and, with God’s help, he would be able to defend them from the malice of their adversaries.[611]

Fortunately for Bonner, the pope’s passion was of brief duration, and the experiment whether Henry’s arm could reach to the dungeons of the Vatican remained untried.  The more moderate of the cardinals, also, something assuaged the storm; and angry as they all were, the majority still saw the necessity of prudence.  In the heat of the irritation, final sentence was to have been pronounced upon the entire cause, backed by interdict, excommunication, and the full volume of the papal thunders.  At the close of a month’s deliberation they resolved to reserve judgement on the original question, and to confine themselves for the present to revenging the insult to the pope by “my Lord of Canterbury.”  Both the king and the archbishop had disobeyed a formal inhibition.  On the 12th of July, the pope issued a brief, declaring Cranmer’s judgment to have been illegal, the